Industry news

New Jersey recycling facility ravaged by fire

The Bayshore Family of Companies, Keasbey, New Jersey, experienced a devastating fire on April 25, 2014. According to a report on the company’s website, the company’s Montecalvo Disposal Services Inc. (MDS) materials recovery and recycling operation was completely destroyed as were portions of the corporate offices. No one was injured in the fire, which, according to reports, was not fully extinguished until April 28. The cause of the fire remains unknown and is under investigation, the company says.

Bayshore, which was profiled in the November/December 2013 Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine cover story, “Breaking the mold,” is one of the region’s largest recycling facilities with six different operations on a 55-acre waterfront site in the Keasbey section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The MDS materials recovery facility that was destroyed processed bulky waste as well as construction and demolition debris from residential, commercial, institutional and industrial generators.

The company reports that all other Bayshore facilities remain operational, including:

Bayshore Soil Management;

Bayshore Recycling Corp.;

Coastal Metals;

Bayshore Recycling Services; and

the waterfront operation.

The Bayshore Family of Companies’ facilities earlier were hit with damage from flooding and an associated fire sustained during Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

// Mergers & acquisitions

LVI Services and NCM Group form new demolition company

LVI Services Inc., New York City, and NCM Group Holdings LLC, Brea, California, two national demolition and remediation services companies, have agreed to merge, forming NorthStar Group Holdings LLC. With combined annual gross revenues approaching $600 million and nearly 50 offices nationwide, NorthStar will be the foremost provider of environmental remediation, deconstruction and demolition, nuclear decommissioning, emergency response and asset recovery management, the companies say.

Leading the newly formed company will be CEO Scott E. State, currently president and CEO of LVI, and President Subhas “Sage” Khara, president and CEO of NCM. Khara and LVI COO John Leonard will manage the operations of the NorthStar organization.

“Both LVI and NCM have earned the confidence of their clients by not only meeting objectives, but exceeding expectations with respect to their diverse and considerable specialty project experiences,” says State. “By combining the two organizations, the customers of NorthStar will benefit from a unique blend of professional expertise, specialized resources and broad geographic readiness at a previously unequalled scale in the facility contracting sector.”

The companies say an exceptional safety record will be primary to NorthStar’s mission and the company’s insurance program also will provide a large breadth of coverage for both owners and general contractors. LVI offers expertise in three primary service line offerings: environmental remediation, deconstruction and decommissioning and emergency response, and is particularly known for its rapid deployment capabilities, according to the company. NCM has become a national one-stop provider of demolition, dismantling, asset and scrap recovery, remediation (asbestos, lead, mold and soil) and disaster response. The two companies have decades of experience with Fortune 500 companies and public sector clients at the local, state and federal levels, they say.

“Our decision to merge the country’s two most accomplished deconstruction and environmental remediation companies is intended to leverage the best, complementary resources of both to meet the most demanding, complex projects for industrial, commercial and government clients,” says Khara.

// Asphalt shingles

Iowa county expands asphalt shingle recycling program

Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency, with facilities in Cedar Rapids and Marion, Iowa, began accepting asphalt shingles for recycling in May 2014 at its Marion facility. Shingle recycling was only available in Cedar Rapids, before.

The agency touts several incentives to recycling asphalt shingles. First, it keeps material out of the landfill. Second, it is cheaper to recycle asphalt shingles than throw them away: it costs $30 per ton to recycle versus $38 per ton landfill tipping fee in that market. Third is convenience.

“Now roofers working on a job in northern Linn County will not have to drive 20 or 30 minutes to downtown Cedar Rapids to recycle and pay less to drop-off,” the agency says on its website, www.solidwasteagency.org.

The solid waste agency works with LL Pelling Co. to operate the asphalt shingle recycling program.

With the acquisition of Heartland Recycling, LRS says it will be able to process more than 1.5 million tons of material per year.

The company adds that with the Heartland deal, it will control and process more municipal solid waste than any other privately held company in Illinois and will have an expanded footprint in Chicago.

Currently LRS operates four material recovery facilities (MRFs) and transfer stations in the Chicago area. The acquisition will increase the revenue of the company to more than $100 million and will add nearly 10 percent to its existing workforce.

One of the predecessor companies of LRS was Recycling Systems Inc., which built and operated two mixed construction & demolition (C&D) debris recycling plants that LRS now operates.

Heartland processes more than 600,000 tons of discarded materials per year, operates two MRFs and serves more than 500 municipal and commercial customers.

“The acquisition of Heartland is a defining moment for LRS and validates our leadership position as one of the Midwest’s largest independent diversified waste services companies,” says Alan Handley, CEO of LRS. “We welcome Heartland customers and employees to the LRS family and we remain committed to realizing aggressive and profitable growth, both organically and through strategic acquisition.”

LRS, which has been providing hauling and recycling services in the Chicago area for more than 12 years, offers recycling and waste diversion programs, roll-off container services and waste removal to businesses and residential homeowners throughout the Chicago area.

// Green building

USGBC approves new LEED Pilot Credit point

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has approved an Innovation and Design point through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Pilot Credit Library on projects seeking LEED certification. The point is available to projects when construction and demolition (C&D) debris is recycled at C&D recycling facilities with recycling rates that have received independent, third-party certification.

According to the Recycling Certification Institute (RCI), Sacramento, California, the Pilot Credit Point was developed as part of the USGBC’s focus on performance in its LEED rating systems. The intent is to achieve higher quality of C&D debris diversion by encouraging a verification standard for recycling facilities willing to accurately quantify waste data. The point is designed to reduce uncertainty associated with self-reported numbers, says RCI. The credit is available for pilot testing by a variety of LEED 2009 project types including new construction, core and shell, schools, retail, commercial interiors, homes and existing buildings.

Specific details on the Pilot Credit point and requirements for independent third-party certification are available at www.usgbc.org.

RCI says its Certification of Real Rates (CORR) Protocol is the only program that meets the requirements of the Pilot Credit. The CORR Protocol is an ISO-level third-party certification standard, which was developed in conjunction with the USGBC, the building, construction and recycling industries and government stakeholders.

Established in 2013, RCI’s purpose is to implement the CORR Protocol. RCI administers the national certification program to ensure integrity, transparency, accuracy and reliability in the recovery and recycling reports of participating C&D recycling facilities.

For additional information about the CORR Protocol and the Pilot Credit point, contact RCI Executive Director Stephen Bantillo by phone at 916-242-8287 or reach him by email at info@recyclingcertification.org.

// Legislation & regulations

Study highlights need for state data on metal theft

The Council of State Governments (CSG), based in Lexington, Kentucky, has released a report that looks at the national problem of scrap metal theft. CSG researchers, working in collaboration with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, D.C., sought to determine whether the legislation passed by different states was having an impact on scrap metal theft.

A significant amount of the existing legislation focuses on placing regulations on transactions at scrap metal recycling facilities where thieves might attempt to sell stolen goods.

The report notes that all 50 states have passed some form of legislation designed to curb metal theft through the regulation of transactions at scrap metal recycling facilities. Additionally, states continue to introduce legislation or modifications to existing laws at a steady pace. During the 2013 and 2014 sessions, for example, legislators introduced more than 220 bills aimed at stopping metal theft and passed 51 of them, the report states.

“All 50 states have laws on the books dealing with metal theft crimes and all have differing regulations, requirements, penalties and other variables,” says ISRI President Robin Wiener. “New laws and regulations are often the result of political reactions to high-profile crimes without any real analysis of how to address the crime as a whole. To solve this, the scrap recycling industry sought to find out if crime rates could shed any light on what laws seem to work best when it came to reducing the crime of metals theft.

Common state laws include:

records on transactions – requirements for scrap metal recyclers and dealers to create and maintain records on transactions, including reporting transactions to an electronic database, a minimum retention period for records, a description of the material being purchased, photos and/or video evidence of the seller and/or the material being purchased and a description and/or the license plate number of the seller’s vehicle;

Renewable Energy from Waste Conference offers MBT workshop

The Renewable Energy from Waste Conference is offering a workshop titled “Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) as a nonthermal treatment option for mixed and residual waste” on Nov. 17, 2014, at the Doubletree by Hilton in San Jose, California. World-renowned MBT expert Dr. Matthias Kuehle-Weidemeier, CEO of the Germany-based waste treatment specialists Wasteconsult International, will lead the workshop.

MBT is a combination of mechanical and biological process steps to give individual waste components a treatment that is appropriate to their material properties, emission potential and economical value. In a time of strongly increasing demand for material resources, extraction of recyclable materials from waste is becoming more and more important.

This preconference workshop will focus on MBT and automatic waste sorting technology as the bridge between the waste management, waste conversion and recycling industries.

This half-day workshop, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., will provide attendees with key insights into MBT, including:

the development of modern MBT systems and how they can reduce landfill input and aftercare costs;

practical experience and lessons learned from working MBT systems in Germany and other countries; and

insight into operational MBT systems to understand how these systems could work in a North America context.

To learn more about this preconference workshop and the full conference schedule, visit www.REWConference.com.

// Demolition projects

New Jersey performs more Superstorm Sandy-related demolition

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has announced that 47 Superstorm Sandy-damaged homes in Sayreville, New Jersey, will be demolished beginning mid-June as part of the state’s $300 million Sandy Blue Acres Buyout Program. All of the demolition was expected to be complete by July.

Under the NJDEP’s Blue Acres program, the state purchases Sandy-damaged dwellings in flood-prone areas from willing sellers at prestorm values, with the properties to be returned to open space.

“The demolition of these houses is, of course, very emotional for their owners,” says Richard Boornazian, NJDEP assistant commissioner for Natural and Historic Resources. “But it also marks progress in our continuing efforts to help these residents get a new start. We remain committed to assisting willing sellers as they go through the buyout process.”

The demolition contracts were bid through New Jersey’s Division of Property Management & Construction.

In addition to Sayreville and South River, the NJDEP has either secured funding or is targeting funding for potential buyouts in Woodbridge, East Brunswick, Newark and the Delaware Bay community of Lawrence Township.

The NJDEP also has engaged in dialogue with officials and residents in other Sandy-impacted municipalities that are being considered for buyouts using a second round of federal funds.

Bacardi Limited, Hamilton, Bermuda, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, recently constructed three new aging warehouses using tons of recycled concrete at its Bacardi rum distillery in Cataño, Puerto Rico.

The project, at what the company says is the world’s largest premium rum distillery, required demolition of six older structures on the 127-acre campus just outside of San Juan. Construction crews recycled the more than 2,300 tons of rubble, amounting to 150 truckloads of concrete, according to the company.

“We took all the rubble from the demolition and reused it as backfill material in building our new warehouses,” says Julio Torruella, project director for Bacardi in Puerto Rico. “This was a zero-waste project designed to reuse steel and concrete, rather than sending material to the landfill.”

This action eliminated both landfill waste and the need to buy new materials for the buildings. As part of its sustainability program, Bacardi says it aims to eliminate landfill waste at all of its production sites by 2022.

Building on current programs that reduce the company’s impact on the environment, the Bacardi Limited “Good Spirited” global sustainability program sets specific goals in three different areas, including:

responsible sourcing;

global packaging; and

operational efficiencies

More information on Bacardi Limited and its “Good Spirited: Building a Sustainable Future” environmental initiative for sourcing, packaging and operational efficiencies is available at www.BacardiLimited.com/good-spirited.

// Association activities

NDA launches new website design

The National Demolition Association (NDA), Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has redesigned its website, www.demolitionassociation.com, to make it more valuable to association members. The NDA describes the site as having “greatly improved user-friendly features, streamlined content and a mobile-response design that allows the same site to be accessed from desktop, tablet or mobile phone.”

Information is no more than three clicks away, according to NDA.

“The new NDA website was designed with NDA members—and the many publics we serve—in mind,” says Kim Wieland, NDA’s director of member services. “In the development phase, we worked with our members to learn what was most important to them. The goal was to make the site convenient to use, as well as a reflection of NDA’s role as the global source of ‘all things demolition.’”

NDA members are able to enter the website through a members-only portal that delivers a more enhanced viewing experience, giving them access to information not available to the general public. The section is integrated into the main website so they no longer need to navigate through a second site.

The redesigned website includes weekly updates of industry news; a link to the NDA blog that allows members to be current on regulatory and compliance issues; and the latest on safety, environmental and business topics. Information from NDA’s educational webinars is available on the site. More information also is available on industry topics including disaster response, environmental stewardship and community development.

// Company news

Great Lakes Dredge completes sale of its demo business

The dredging firm Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp. (GLDD) has completed the sale of NASDI LLC and Yankee Environmental Services LLC, its two subsidiaries that comprise its demolition business.

The company sold the two businesses to a Midwest demolition company for $5.3 million. The name of the company has not been disclosed.

GLDD adds that it will still retain the right to collect all outstanding accounts receivable and work in process at the date of close, as well as any outstanding claims, and retains certain obligations, including obligations related to performance bonds issued for existing projects.

The company also has retained a remediation project that will be performed by its Terra subsidiary.

Jonathan Berger, GLDD’s CEO, says, “We are pleased to announce the sale of the historical demolition business as we continue to refocus our strategy and expand upon our success in environmental and remediation services that complement our core dredging business. The new ownership structure is a good fit for the historical demolition business and we wish all those related to that business, best wishes on future endeavors.”

GLDD provides dredging services in the East, West and Gulf Coast of the United States and worldwide. The company has a 50 percent interest in Amboy Aggregates, a sand dredging operation in New Jersey and a 50 percent interest in TerraSea Environmental Solutions, an environmental remediation services business. The company operates in two segments: dredging and demolition.